CNN National Presidential Poll Includes Gary Johnson, Jill Stein

On September 10, a CNN/ORC poll for the presidential race was released. See the results here. Scroll down to question 4, to find results for all candidates for registered voters, and for likely voters.

The registered voters show: Obama 50%, Romney 41%, Gary Johnson 4%, Jill Stein 2%, undecided/other 1%. This only adds up to 98%, so chances are the percentages for several candidates were on the verge of being rounded up.

Comments

Excellent showing for Gary Johnson. I am hopeful that we can get 5% in the November election for the LP and set a new record both in number of votes and in percentage. It would also entitle the Libertarian Party to over 100 million dollars from the FEC for the 2016 election. I am not sure on the details of how that works but it would be a great boost to our marketing efforts. Lets keep up the effort on through November!

Since the LP record is only 1.06% (Ed Clark in 1980), it assuradly will be broken by Gary Johnson. The real question is if the LP will break its record for percentage of the vote in a state. Which is currently 11.66% in Alaska during the 1980 election. 1980 also saw the highest number of LP votes in a presidential election at 921,128.

I think the publicity around Gary Johnson has ushered a permanant growth in the LP, and that at least 1980 levels of support will be a regular occurance for the LP in the future.

I also expect the Constitution Party to set records as well, despite the lack of ballot access in California. The Goode campaign has recieved much more media attention than usual constitution party campaigns, even my local paper ran a story on the Goode campaign (though mostly as how he could act as a spoiler in Virginia).

Doremus,the funds that the Libertarian Party would receive come from the check-off voluntary donations that many Americans make when they file the Federal tax returns. It is not mandatory for tax payers to participate in that but many do.

Maybe this isn’t the place for a comment on the $3 checkoff, but I just think it’s interesting.

When you check the box, the consequence is that the government spends an additional $3 on the campaign fund — but it doesn’t spend any less on anything else. So when you check it, it’s like saying “Spend another $3, and add $3 to the federal debt.”

So I think it does add to the burden on future taxpayers, in the form of debt service.

I have never been able to decide whether it’s right or wrong for Libertarians to take that money. I can see both sides of it.

Arthur, #7, I see both sides of it, too. I know Harry Browne refused to accept the matching funds and I agreed with that. But I am not sure if we impressed many people other than ourselves. Now that we are accepting the funding, I agree to try it to use it for a good purpose. Perhaps we will be more successful by using it for our campaings for liberty.

Do you have any statistics on the number of “corporate people” who take advantage of the $3 check box on their personal tax returns.

Also…some old business. You claimed in an earlier post that 99% of the funds begin expended on behalf of the presidential candidates from the two major parties are coming from “individuals” (by “individuals” I assume you mean the traditional kind that have human skin, eat food, breathe, poop and pee, and make actual sounds with their mouths when speak). Do you have any hard evidence to substantiate that claim? Have you found some secret and reliable source of data which reveals who has donated to Super Pacs and 501c.4’s and how much to date? Can you publish it in this space? I’d really like to read through it.

Honestly it doe not make any sense to not take the money. Think about it, with how many deep pocketed donors the top 2 have AND the amount of federal funds the top 2 get (I believe it was in the neighborhood of 27.5 million this season) it is a major hinderance to reject the additional help. Unfortunately at this point in time it isn’t like the LP brings in $50 milllion in donations a month.

#8: No, you misunderstand how the checkoff works. A person who checks the box does not incur an additional $3 in tax liability. Rather, $3 of what would have gone to the general fund from their taxes goes instead to the fund.

I can also see arguments on both sides of whether Libertarians should accept or turn down the funds.

As a libertarian, I have always felt uneasy about taking matching funds.

I recall knowing one libertarian who argued that taking matching funds was the moral equivalent of capturing enemy weapons on the battlefield. Why would you not use them against the enemy? He had them pointed at you.

Great question @10. I was wondering the same thing because there isn’t any published data substantiating the claim that 99% of the Super PAC and 501 (c) (4) donors are actually living, breathing human beings.

The IRS, in the case of 501 (c) (4) contributions, doesn’t release that information (at least not in any publicly available fashion) and FEC monthly reports strikingly contradict that statistic.

It’s probably a secret report available only to dreamy-eyed libertarians who cherish the role of corporations in American society…

The free market is great! Thanks to Citizens United, Corporate America’s voice and those of the withering and wounded wealthy class, stifled for decades — if not centuries — will finally be heard!

The Libertarians are a joke. Their candidate for President is the biggest “welfare queen” in the 2012 presidential contest — taking more than three times the amount received by the Green Party’s frugal-minded Jill Stein.

Gary Johnson, who promises to cut welfare, food stamps and other federal spending by 43% across the board — imposing a kind of austerity program that would have made the Weimar Republic proud — has already taken $330,000 from the federal treasury [as of July 31] to fund his deeply-indebted campaign.

He also said that he’ll abolish the FEC and its matching fund program for presidential candidates once he takes office…and, of course, after he’s taken full advantage of the federal largesse.

“Where does it say stein has 2%. look at page 22. It clearly states 1% under reg voters on page 22………..”

Are you kidding me? You’re actually disputing a one percent differential in Jill Stein’s polling results, a relatively insignificant percentile well within the margin of error?

How petty can you be?

Let me guess. You’re a Libertarian, right?

I hope Jill finishes ahead of all of the other third-party candidates nationally, especially ex-Gov. Johnson who never governed but spent eight years in office vetoing every legislative measure that came across his desk.

Speaking of that, why didn’t Gov. Johnson sign New Mexico’s hate-crime legislation in the aftermath of the Matthew Shepard murder? Almost every other state in the Union enacted such legislation.

“Excellent showing for Gary Johnson. I am hopeful that we can get 5% in the November election for the LP and set a new record both in number of votes and in percentage.” — George Whitfield @ 1.

George, you’ve been following presidential politics long enough to know that 4 percent at this point in the campaign translates to less than 1 percent in November…

A candidacy on the verge of bankruptcy — a campaign with a debt-to-cash ratio of roughly 15 or 20-1 — that hasn’t purchased any appreciable radio or TV time by early September, can’t possibly exceed one percent of the vote.

Johnson’s Libertarian campaign still hasn’t run its first paid advertisement on radio or TV.

As Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman commented in a recent interview with former Salt Lake City Mayor and Justice Party presidential candidate Rocky Anderson, nobody knows who Gary Johnson is…

“Insurance giant Aetna inadvertently disclosed more than $7 million in donations to conservative political groups in a regulatory filing made earlier this year, according to a Washington-based advocacy group.

“Documents obtained and distributed by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington show that Aetna made a $3 million donation to the American Action Network and a $4.05 million donation to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in 2011.”

But hey – 7 million is 1% of JUST 700 million, so I suppose this doesn’t disprove the theory that only 1% of money flowing into our political process comes from corporate “persons.” Besides – those are 2011 numbers. There MUST have been reasons to make those donations in 2011 that don’t have ANY bearing WHATSOEVER on the election in 2012. And it could very possibly be that Aetna is the ONLY corporate person in the US who has an interest in spending big money to push their political agenda by electing politicians friendly to their, let’s see…what would they be called…”family budgets?” What IS the P&L statement of a corporate person called, anyway? Do you know, 17?

Anyway, don’t you agree Richard, that this Aenta thingie is surely an anomaly? Regardless let us see your data on corporate money in American politics. Share…share! Tell us how you know it represents only 1% of the total. And tell us, too, how you know this will be the case in the future. And tell us why we shouldn’t have a care in the world about fascism taking firm root in our country.

“Ambition must be made to counteract ambition” To veto outrageous spending and therefore bring your state out of debt and into a surplus is to govern properly. To use matching funds that would otherwise have gone into the pockets of the two parties is a legitimate action by any presidential candidate and does not constitute a failure of principle. You’d be a fool not to accept it. Especially if it helps break the back of the democrats and republicans that have sought nothing more than the continuation of power and have hurt the nation in doing so.